Contrition
by HDUC
Summary: In the midst of investigating ugliness in paradise, the Doctor, with his probative nature, gets a bit carried away. When Martha calls him on his impulsiveness and insensitivity, he wants to make it up to her... how EVER shall he do it? Ten/Martha - Adult!
1. Chapter 1

**Plot bunnies! Plot bunnies! They're living under my patio! Aagh!**

 **Anyway, here's the new offering, another one that just wouldn't freaking die already! And allow me to be very direct: THERE WILL BE SMUT! Most of the sci-fi elements, as often happens in my stories, exist to justify the naughty bits. Hope you enjoy them, nevertheless.**

 **This story will be, I believe, five chapters, and I will post the chapters in fairly quick succession.**

* * *

 **Disclaimer: I did some research into Hawaiian history and folklore... none of it quite suited me, and my story so I made up my own. The volcano, the legend, the luau sites, the hotel, the beach... it's all completely invented by me. The only true parts are the bits of Hawaiian language I use, and even that is without knowing anything about the grammar!**

 **Request: If you read, review!** **Mahalo!**

* * *

ONE

"Hawai'i!" he shouted from down the hall.

"Wha?" she shouted back, her mouth full of toothpaste. She was barely awake, still in her pyjamas, and it was obviously too early for anyone, even a Time Lord, to be shouting random geographical locations at her. She hadn't even had her coffee yet.

To her dismay, she then heard his trainers on the floor, coming nearer. She groaned quietly, and just continued brushing her teeth.

"Hawai'i!" he said as he got to her and leaned over the doorjamb. "Anomalous time activity. Console room. Come look!"

"There are Hawai'ians in the console room?" she asked cheekily, as he jogged away, back down the hall from whence he came.

"Oh, just come!"

She spat into the sink. "After I put on clothes!"

"Whatever," he hollered back.

* * *

She put on a pair of jeans and deep pink tank top, and dragged herself into the kitchen. She could smell coffee from metres away. There, the Doctor stood in his fitted brown suit, holding a steaming cup. He walked forward as she entered, and handed it to her.

"Thanks," she said, confusedly.

"I knew you'd come here first," he told her, before pouring a cup for himself.

She turned toward the table, and noticed two laptops sitting, facing the chair where the Doctor usually sat. One of them looked decidedly non-terrestrial, the other looked like hers.

"Is that my Powerbook?"

"Yeah, sorry. You left it in the library, and I thought it would come in handy. Hope you don't mind."

She shrugged. What was he going to do? Mess it up and not be able to fix it? Correct the grammar in her MD thesis? Read all of her Top Secret e-mails? Know that she went searching for photos of baby koalas yesterday?

She sat down in her usual spot across from his, and got ready to hear about time anomalies in Hawai'i.

He plopped down, and said, "Okay, look here." He turned the alien laptop toward her so she could see the screen. She glanced at the keyboard. It looked like a much smaller version of one of the panels of his main console, and the readout on the screen looked a lot like a type of data blipping away, that she had seen on the screen attached to said console.

She had seen it, but of course, she had never understood it.

"What am I looking at?"

"The thing on the far left that looks like an old-fashioned mercury thermometer, that's a measure of anomalous time activity. So far, we can't tell _what's_ happening, only that _something_ is."

"When you say _we,_ you mean..."

"Me and the TARDIS."

"Of course."

"The thing in the middle shows the date and time."

"I'll take your word for it," she said, as the display was in Gallifreyan.

"On the right, you'll see the Earth."

"I will?" she asked, squinting.

"Hold on," he said. Then he turned the device around, tapped some keys, then faced it toward Martha again. "There."

"Oh yeah." On the right, she now clearly saw the southwestern part of the United States, Mexico, Central America, and the northwestern part of South America. And to the west, Hawai'i. And there, there was clearly some activity. A thick pulse was concentrated there, and nowhere else that she could see.

"Now hit the button that says _Revolution Surveillance._ "

"You're kidding, right?"

He shut his eyes tightly, trying to visualise. "It's the first button below the map. I think. Just try it and see what happens."

She used the white ball to move a pointer to the button he had indicated, then pressed down on it, as she had seen him do a few times. It clicked, and the map began to change.

The date and time began to scroll through what she assumed were more numbers, and she could see the pulse on Hawai'i grow bigger and smaller at regular intervals.

"What's this, a feed of what's been happening over the past year? Revolution Surveillance?"

"Yep," he said. "On twenty four cycles, the time activity gets stronger, then wanes away somewhat, then gets stronger again, et cetera. It never goes away entirely, but during the day, it is very faint. It's at its peak around midnight."

"Okay, so where do we start?"

"Well, Miss Jones, I'm glad you asked," he chirped, before turning her own laptop to face her.

On the screen she saw a _Los Angeles Daily News_ article, headlined, "Hawai'i Disappearances Still Unsolved."

"People are going missing from this one area," he said, not waiting for her to read the article.

"The Makua Malama Hotel and Resort?" she asked, reading ahead.

"Right. They own nine different luau sites in the area, in addition."

"Luau sites?"

"You know, those campy fake bamboo and grass huts where they host luaus on the beach, designed to trap tourists," he explained. "Fire dances, hulas, roasting pigs and whatnot."

"I see."

"The thing is, if you look at a map... hit Control-Tab."

She did. "Okay." She was now regarding a plot map of ten sites.

"If you look at the map, you'll see that the Makua Malama's holdings form a crescent."

"Yes, I see that."

"And can you guess what's right in the middle of that crescent? Right in the cradle?"

"The mysterious temporal disturbance?" she asked with a smile.

"Right you are," he said. "According to the article, there have been _at least_ fifteen disappearances, in the past three months, possibly more, before the pattern was noticed. Now, in the area of that temporal activity, you'll also notice that there is a dormant volcano called Puka Manawa."

He looked at her meaningfully, waiting for her to come to some sort of conclusion.

"Sorry, I need more."

"Puka Manawa, in the Hawaiian language, means, roughly, _Bottomless Hole in Time._ "

"Oh! Oh, that _is_ significant! Is there some kind of, say, local legend that tells us why?"

"Exactly what I was wondering. I checked into it, but the only thing I could find was a supposed mountain god sort of thing, called Ai Pule, who is said to control the volcano," he told her, sitting back in his chair. "He eats... _pieces_ of people. Arms and legs first, then the torso, and the head is the dessert."

"Lovely."

"Legends tend to ring with truth somewhere - a lot of human mythology has to do with interstellar activity and aliens and things like that, stuff that people can't explain in any other way. The stories get passed down, and they evolve and so on. Anyway, I would find it very hard to believe that _this_ legend is completely unrelated to what's going on - that would be an awfully big coincidence, given the geographical 'convenience' of it all. But I can't quite work out _how_ it all fits together."

"Are you thinking Ai Pule is an alien?"

"Maybe, but unless and until I know his or her non-Hawaiian name, or come into contact with it, I would have no clue. Naturally, I can't just throw myself into a volcano..."

"Well, with the time anomalies, shouldn't that narrow it down? Wouldn't there only be a handful of species in the universe who can manipulate time?"

"A handful? As far as I know there's only one. And you're looking at him."

"But there have to be other ways... portals and stuff... do those exist?"

"Yeah," he said, pulling his hand down over his face. "They do. And they _do_ tend to be anomalous, especially on Earth. I suppose someone might have stumbled upon one. Plus, there's something called a Vortex Manipulator that the Time Agents used to use."

"Well, what species are Time Agents?"

"Human, mostly. Humans, thousands of years into your future. I had a friend who was a Time Agent for a while... but even then, the technology is stolen from us, from research accomplished by the Time Lords. Stolen, then modified, dumbed-down almost so as to be unrecognisable, and super-rough to use for travel but..."

"Okay. So, again, I ask, where do we start?"

"I was thinking we should check into that hotel, attend a luau or two, see what we can see."

"Well, I can think of worse ways to investigate a possible time-travelling alien who eats human heads for dessert."

* * *

After checking into the luxurious Makua Malama Hotel, the Doctor got immediately on the phone to reserve two seats at one of the luau sites that night. Martha sat in the lounge chair on the balcony and leafed through the luau brochures she had picked up in the lobby.

Actually, though she was leafing, she was only pretending to be interested in them. In reality, she was trying to calm her nerves. The room they had been issued was beautiful with cherry-wood shelves on one wall, containing a sliding cabinet with a television, satellite receiver and DVD player inside. The décor was, of course, modern and impeccable, including a firm, boxy armchair and ottoman with a chic Hawaiian black and white pattern. The lamps were opaque and sleek, and reminded Martha of lava lamps, and the art on the wall was abstract though simple. The bed had a white bedspread and red and white throw-pillows to accent it, in another chic Hawaiian pattern...

And that was just the problem: the bed. There was only one. Any time in the past when they had shared a bed, things had not gone well, at least for her. She always spent the night sleepless, unable to relax, painfully aware that _he_ was just an arm's reach away, supine, dozing, dreaming... The night always brought with it new hope, and therefore, new angst. Thoughts always are more potent and exaggerated at night when one cannot sleep, nor talk out one's problems. Love within her always grew distorted, at the same time lustful and resentful. In the morning, she was always a mess, ill-equipped to run and jump for lack of sleep, and ill-equipped to help for lack of satisfaction.

Frequently, she wanted to scream and rail at the Doctor, force him to notice how much she was suffering, and asking him _why,_ oh, why he couldn't just address it. Then again, she had never addressed it directly either. After all these months, he _had_ to know how she felt, and yet he still did things like, say, book a hotel room with only one bed. She wondered whether he felt that choosing two beds would have been somehow too on-the-nose for him, too close to actually acknowledging the elephant in the room. Maybe next time, _she_ ought to do the reserving.

The one consolation to being in love with a man who was totally hung-up on a former "girlfriend," if that's what she was, was that though he was not interested in Martha, he didn't seem interested in anyone else either. The Doctor, at least _this_ Doctor, was fully aware of his allure; he was kind of gorgeous and he knew it. He often used it to his advantage, and yet sometimes seemed surprised when women (and men) would throw themselves at him. Nevertheless, his default personality was almost irrepressibly flirtatious, even with her, so when he used harmless chatting-up as a means of gleaning information, it didn't really bother her. So, unless his beloved Rose Tyler were to stumble out of a wormhole sometime in the near future, Martha felt she didn't have much to worry about. Actually, if _that_ happened, Martha reckoned she would probably buy a one-way ticket home immediately, no questions asked. (This was one of the awful queries she had explored in the middle of the night, while not sleeping with the Doctor. And the one-way-ticket-home answer had been the somewhat cowardly, though honest-with-herself response.)

In any case, she thought it would be fairly discourteous of the Doctor to ignite any sort of "liaison" as long as he travelled with her, or any one woman. She reckoned she would probably feel that way, even if she didn't have the _feelings_ that she had. She was glad that she had never had to discuss this with him.

And then, something in the stack of brochures actually caught her eye.

* * *

The Doctor came out onto the balcony and announced, "We are set. Dinner for two at Luau Hau-Ahi at six o'clock."

"Look at this," she said, pulling her feet in and making room for him to sit at the end of the lounge chair. He sat, and she handed him a brochure.

"Pohihihi Ao," he said, furrowing, reading the cover. "Camping trip."

"Right," she said. "Pohihihi Ao means _mystery lights_. You can go with a group and spend the night on a beach, from which you can observe the mystery lights phenomenon, of the volcano Puka Manawa."

"Oh! That's... wow. Mystery lights, eh?"

"Yeah. They probably have geologists on the case, examining it for sulfuric activity or something, but the brochure says the light show is totally unexplained."

"Okay, let's do it."

"I'll do it," she said. "Don't you think that you should visit more than one luau tonight? Reservations or not?"

"I suppose."

"Go to the sites after they've closed, even?"

"Okay, then," he said. "Go call and reserve your place on the beach. I'll pop back to the TARDIS and find you a sleeping bag and some sensible shoes. The brochure says you need your own."


	2. Chapter 2

**Our Hawaiian adventure continues... it's more adventurous for some than for others, however. ;-)**

 **I've noticed a few people following this story. If you are following/reading, PLEASE take a moment to review! It's what keeps me writing, and it's only fair!**

 **Above all, enjoy! (Even if you're face-palming at the end!)**

* * *

TWO

Their reservation at the luau was for 6:00 p.m., and Martha was supposed to meet the camping excursion group in front of the hotel at 7:00. But she reckoned, for an hour, she could help the Doctor do some reconnaissance, help give him something to look into after-hours.

They were sat in a circular booth that backed up to a curved bamboo wall. They had a nice view of the hilly platform where they were told the fire dance and hula presentation would begin at 8:30. Beyond it, they could see tables draped in white tablecloths where uniformed men and women were setting up a massive buffet, in the middle of which, there was a hula-dancing ice sculpture and a huge, whole, roasted pig. Martha was a little sorry she would miss most of the festivities, but at least there wouldn't be any distraction while they scoped things out together. On the table were two bamboo cups already filled with water and ice cubes. The host wished them a pleasant evening, and walked away.

"Do you know anything about a typical Hawaiian fire dance?" Martha asked.

"Not really."

"Maybe we should have put in a little research first," she said. "Then maybe you could spot something off-kilter."

They talked for about two minutes about different possibilities: secret exits/portals, alien cooking staff, mass hypnosis perpetrated by hula dancers, etc. The Doctor did not dismiss anything at this stage, and made several mental notes.

Their conversation was cut short by their waitress, who arrived with two drinks on a tray, and two leis hanging over her arm. She greeted them and put the tray down, then put one of the leis over Martha's head, then turned to do the same for the Doctor.

At that point, she seemed to see him for the first time. She stopped short of his head, and her eyes changed. For a second, she was frozen and gazing at the Doctor. Nearly imperceptible as it was, Martha definitely noticed.

"Hello there," the young woman chirped flirtatiously as she lowered the lei over the Doctor's head, and unnecessarily arranged it to drape across his chest.

"Hello," he said back, with more or less his usual affable air. Though Martha knew him well, and she detected a hint of something else, something a bit more magnetic in his stare.

Inwardly, she groaned. _You've got to be kidding me._

The waitress was either Asian or Hawaiian, and rather tall for a woman of either ilk. She was, of course, idyllically beautiful. Her hair was perfectly straight, shiny like a mirror, black like crude oil, and hung halfway down her back. She wore a lavender and blue sarong, tied off beneath her arms to form a strapless dress. Her shoulders, therefore, were exposed and Martha could see that she looked as though she'd been airbrushed bronze. She had a red, glossy heart-shaped mouth and perfect, large white teeth.

The smile on her face was dreamy and her eyes remained fixed on the Doctor, even as she picked up one drink off the tray and set it down in front of Martha. She then did the same with the second drink, in front of the Doctor.

"Erm, I probably should tell you," the Doctor said, fixated in much the same way. "We didn't order these."

"Two drinks for each guest are included in the price of a ticket," the woman told him, practically lilting, singing the words. "It's Hau-Ahi punch."

"What's in it?" Martha asked, staring into her cup and smelling the very strong, unmistakable aroma of alcohol.

The woman very briefly looked at Martha, then addressed her answer to the Doctor. "It's pineapple juice, grenadine, dark rum, coconut rum, banana liqueur, and orange liqueur."

"Strong drink," the Doctor said, smoothly.

"For those of a certain constitution," said the waitress, winking at him. "Anyhow, my name is Kailani, and I will be serving you tonight. In case you have not joined us before, the buffet opens at seven, the dance presentation begins at eight, and the dance floor becomes available to all guests at ten, the luau finishes up at midnight, and of course, we have a full bar, open until half-past eleven. They will pour any cocktail you wish - prices are on the wall. Tonight they are offering additional glasses of Hau-Ahi punch for only two dollars each, between nine and eleven. And on that note, we offer a shuttle service back to all of the nearby hotels, and a shuttle service for the morning, in case you need to come back for your car. Feel free to indulge."

"Brilliant, thank you," said the Doctor.

"I love the way you talk," said Kailani with a sparkling smile. "Where are you from?"

"Erm, London," he said, glancing uneasily at Martha.

"Your accent is lovely," she said.

"Thanks. So is yours," he retorted with a smirk.

"Well, would you care for an edamame appetizer, or a California roll, before the buffet opens up?"

"Sure, why not?" the Doctor answered. "Bring us both!"

"We also have a Tako roll or calamari tempura."

"Any chance we could get a little of each?" he asked.

"We don't have a sampler platter," answered Kailani seeming genuinely disappointed. She looked around at the other wait staff, then at the kitchen door. "But for you, I'll see if I can pull some strings." She gave the Doctor a private smile, then a wink, and then bustled off toward the kitchen with her tray under her arm.

"What am I, invisible?" Martha asked.

"Don't take it personally," he said, waving her question away.

Martha said a quiet "ugh," then reached for her glass of Hau-Ahi punch.

"Don't drink that yet," the Doctor commanded.

"Why?"

"Why?" he repeated. "Why do you think I ordered so many different appetizers? I want to inspect everything that tourists ingest when they come in. A super-strong cocktail that comes included in the price of a ticket? That could be a huge clue!"

"Oh. Okay," Martha said, feeling rather silly.

The Doctor used his straw to drop a dollop of the drink into his hand, and then extracted his brainy glasses from his pocket, throwing them on with flourish. Then he pulled the sonic screwdriver from a different pocket, and shined the light into the liquid while the thing buzzed. He brought his hand very close to his face, and squinted, his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth.

"Hm," he said.

"What?"

"Seems okay."

With that, he licked the small amount of cocktail out of the palm of his hand, and then aimed the sonic at his tongue. It buzzed for about three seconds. Then he licked his lips, smacked them a bit, seemed to contemplate the flavour of the drink, then announced. "Yeah. It's just juice and a hell of a lot of liquor."

He repeated the same process on Martha's drink, and came to the same conclusion.

"So it's safe?" she asked, amused after watching the fascinating display.

"Well, it might knock you on your arse, but it doesn't have any non-terrestrial or abstract substances, or any mind-controlling properties. Other than what alcohol already does."

"A drink can have abstract substances?"

"Like time energy. Yeah. But this one doesn't."

"Okay, then," she said, taking a sip. "Wow, it's really good."

He took a sip then as well. "It is!" he said. "Ooh, I can really taste the banana!"

"Do you get drunk from alcohol?" she wondered. She had never had occasion to do so before.

"Oh, yes," he said. "Twenty per-cent to the bloodstream, same as you. Except it gets pumped through me a bit faster 'cause of the whole two-heart situation."

"Well, I'm going to just have another sip, and then be done. I don't want to be loopy when I go out on that beach tonight."

"Good idea," he said, though he took another long swig for himself.

When Kailani returned a few moments later, she said, "I have great news! The chef agreed, just for you, to do a sampler platter of all of our appetizers." Then she actually reached out and used her thumb and forefinger to tweak the Doctor's chin. "You should feel lucky that I'm such an influential person around here."

"I do, indeed," he said.

"It'll be about five minutes. Unless I can, you know, light a fire under him." She said _light a fire_ with a deeper tone to her voice, slightly breathier than her normal speaking voice, and flick of her eyebrow. Then she flashed the Doctor another wink and a dazzling smile, and again trotted away.

"Okay, you know what?" Martha said, sliding to her left, to the end of the booth. "I'm going to go. I'll... I don't know, freshen up before I meet my camping group."

"What? Why? It's only six-fifteen. Don't you at least want to eat first?"

"I'll get something from the snack bar in the hotel," she said, standing up.

He blinked at her a few times. "Martha, don't worry about Kailani. She's a waitress in a tourist-trap. Flirting is part of her job!"

Martha knew this, though doubted that what she had witnessed with Kailani and the Doctor was simple flirting, given the stop-and-stare that had occurred when Kailani had seen him. In addition, she wondered aloud, "Right, and what are _you_ doing?"

"You know how this works! You have to get on someone's good side if you're going to do any poking and prodding later on. It helps to have an in!"

"Look, do what you have to do, just don't make me sit here and watch, all right? And go easy on those cocktails - they're, like, atomic or something. I'll see you later."

"Okay. Look, I'm sorry. Really. We'll talk tomorrow. Do you have your mobile on, and charged-up?"

"Yeah. I'll be back in the morning... probably around nine. The bus picks us up from the beach at eight a.m."

"Okay. Be safe. Don't try to go near the lights!"

"Do I look stupid? I'll see you tomorrow."

* * *

As expected, the campout was quite lovely. The people were nice, the beach was spectacular, and the mysterious light show was... well, mysterious. At least to those not in-the-know. To Martha, it was rather unmistakably the swirling, flashing phenomenon that accompanied time travel. She had seen the same sort of thing, numerous times, coming through the windows of the TARDIS when it was tumbling through the vortex. Could there be a sort of vortex tributary, or doorway, or something, right there at the foot of the volcano Puka Manawa? Was it a natural route, or had someone ripped a hole in the skin of reality or something? Was this a revelation, or would the Doctor already know this much? Was it possible even to have anomalous time activity _without_ some kind of access to the vortex, such as this? She reckoned there probably was, although, perhaps "without access" just meant that the "access" had to be so small as to be undetectable. As such, wouldn't the fact that they could see it from this far away mean that this hole in the world was huge?

She had brought a journal with her, to write stuff down, especially the questions that arose, though she knew that one way or another, she'd have to have the Doctor come and take a look. She had planned on doing her writing after everyone went to sleep. But it turned out that a few people on the excursion were actually geologists, who were watching the lights, and taking notes themselves (though they mostly had laptops). Martha had already told a few people that she was a medical student, so she made up something about possibly seeking a secondary degree in geology, and joined the sciency-types and scratched away with her paper and pencil.

As expected, the swirling blue light show grew brighter and brighter as midnight approached, and then as soon as midnight waned, so did the lights. They never went away entirely, and actually provided a nice glow for slumber.

Everyone set out their sleeping bags and seemed to rest. Sometime around when the sun was coming up, they were all jostled awake by a horrible, guttural sound - almost a roar. Martha had been conditioned to wonder, as a kneejerk response, whether she had somehow drawn attention to herself, and Ai Pule the carnivorous mountain god, was coming to consume her - limbs first, then torso, then head. But upon shaking off the grog, she realised that one of the campers, Carla, was standing just down an embankment, vomiting violently into the sea. Carla's husband woke and started running down to help. Everyone tried to return to sleep, but when the husband returned, a few people sat up again and asked what happened.

"I don't know," he said. "My guess is food poisoning. She had mussels for dinner... maybe they were bad. I ordered the pasta primavera - I don't do shellfish."

"Erm, do you want me to... intervene?" Martha asked meekly. As far as she knew, she was the only medic in the group.

"I think she would appreciate that, but maybe wait until she's done puking," he said.

When Carla seemed to have nothing left to heave, she started coming back toward the group, and no-one was sleeping. Martha walked out to meet her, and asked her a few questions about other symptoms, and Carla allowed Martha to check her pupils for dilation. Martha estimated that Carla probably had a slight fever, though apologised and said she had no equipment with her for examination. So unless Carla could pinpoint certain complaints, Martha had nothing useful to say, other than Carla's husband's initial diagnosis: probably food poisoning. She advised Carla to see a proper doctor as soon as possible, however.

By then, the sun was coming up, and according to Martha's mobile, it was just after five a.m. The group leader announced then that he had called for the bus to come and collect them from the beach early. He assured them, "It should be here by six," and everyone agreed this was best.

* * *

And so, like everyone else on the excursion, Martha returned to the hotel two hours earlier than expected. She trudged to the lift and rode up, feeling sleep-deprived and gritty, and let herself into the room. She wasn't sure if the Doctor would be there, or whether he'd be out, still nosing about the luau sites.

But he _was_ there. He was standing on the balcony, shirt untucked, feet bare, hair a worse mess than usual, staring out at hills beyond, bathed in new-morning sun.

And when her eye was drawn by what was tossed over the ottoman, she halted short and gasped before she could stop herself. It was a lavender and blue sarong, and she had seen it before.


	3. Chapter 3

**The Doctor will say surprisingly little. And that's a good thing. :-)**

 **If you read, please review!**

* * *

THREE

Martha had returned to the hotel two hours earlier than expected. Her eye was drawn by what was tossed over the ottoman: a lavender and blue sarong, and she had seen it before.

She dared to walk forward two more paces, and the bed was revealed from behind a corner afforded by the entryway.

Her breath caught in her throat. The figure between the sheets was unmistakable.

It was those same exposed shoulders, that same gold skin, the crude-oil hair fanned out on the pillow beside her. The heart-shaped mouth was slightly open as she slumbered, her head tilted perfectly to one side.

Martha threw her duffel and sleeping bag on the floor with a _thud._

The Doctor turned. When he saw her, his mouth dropped open and he tried to speak but nothing came out.

She was shaking with pure... everything. Every emotion she could think of now coursed through her, and she suddenly had no words, in any language.

"You weren't supposed to be back until nine o'clock," was what finally came out of his mouth, after several long, long moments of a speechless, wide-eyed standoff.

It was such an impertinent, infuriating thing to say, that once again, she almost lost all knowledge of language. But she managed to say, "Is _this_ part of her job, too?"

"Whoa, now..."

"I told you those bloody cocktails were trouble."

"No. Martha, listen..."

"I don't think so," she said, peeling off her jacket and shoes, tossing them on top of her duffel. "Oddly, I'm not in a listening sort of mood just now."

"This is..."

"Not what it looks like?" she spat. "Nine hundred years, and you still don't know that it's _always_ what it looks like? Are you that stupid? Or do you just think that I am?"

"No, please..."

She took a big breath, and put her hands out in front of her, to halt him speaking. "Okay, you know what? _Technically_ this is none of my business. And at the moment, I feel disgusting because I spent the night in the sand. So I'm going to have a long shower and pretend I didn't see anything."

"Erm, okay," he said with a deep scowl.

"But I didn't sleep much last night, so when I'm finished, there had better be an _empty_ bed for me to crash on."

"Understood," he said sobrely, shoving his hands in his pockets. Apparently, to her relief, he had given up trying to explain himself.

"Good." And she turned on her heel and shut herself into the bathroom. As soon as she could stumble to the shower, she turned on the water full-blast, to mask the sound of her sobbing.

* * *

She took almost a half-hour in the shower (she gave herself a good long time to weep, clean up, then relax in the steam and healing hot water), and then another half-hour blowing out her hair, applying face cream and body lotion, clipping her toenails, et cetera, at a leisurely pace.

When she stepped out into the room, dressed in the hotel bathrobe, she looked about cautiously. Fortunately, there was no sign of the lavender and blue sarong, nor of the woman who had worn it. In fact, the room looked as though it had been put back together by the hotel's maid service. The illusion that no-one had slept in that bed _ever,_ had been restored.

Although, the Doctor was still on the balcony, but this time, even _he_ had been put back together. He was well-coiffed, fully suited-up, had his shoes on, and was reading a magazine on the lounge chair.

"Housekeeping's been in?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said, putting down the magazine, and turning to face her. "I requested a visit."

"Thanks."

He stood up, and spoke demurely. "I just wanted to try and start over, and say a quick _hello_ before you go to sleep. But I'll leave you alone, so you can rest."

"Thanks," she repeated. "Where are you going?"

"Dunno," he shrugged. "As you may have guessed, I didn't get to any other luau sites last night, so maybe I'll go out and talk to some people. Pretend I'm looking for a job, or something."

She smirked. "I don't think they'd hire you."

"Right. Too white, too British, too old."

"Too nerdy."

He chuckled. "Maybe I could do the books or revamp their computer system. But it doesn't matter," he said. "I just want to pick some brains."

"Okay," she said, and then she bent, and dug into her duffel, extracting the journal she had taken with her to the beach. She handed it to him. "Here, I made some notes about the 'light show' last night. I had a few thoughts of my own, but I don't know if any of it will be useful to you."

His eyebrows raised. "Oh, thanks. I'll have a look." He put the journal, and his hands, back down at his sides. "Do you need anything?"

"No," she said meekly. "Just a kip, and a bit of perspective. I'm hoping to kill two birds."

"Okay. Get some rest," he practically whispered. And then he slipped out of the room.

* * *

When she awoke, she looked at the clock, and learned that she had been asleep for about four hours. It was now just after noon, and she was famished. She picked up the phone and ordered a sandwich and some coffee from room service, and turned on the television to stop herself over-thinking.

She ate her lunch mindlessly as she watched an American chat show, and tried to shake herself out of the groggy, pensive stupor into which she had plunged herself.

Later, she went for a walk, then bought a book in the gift shop, and read about half of it while she sat in the shade on the hotel pool deck, admiring the blue sky and palm trees. She killed the rest of the day as though she were really on holiday.

But how ever much she tried to put it out of her mind and immerse herself in the paperback thriller she had purchased, the anger and pain still boiled just beneath the surface. She couldn't help how she felt - she was smitten with him. In love. In such a bind that it made her feel ill sometimes.

And apparently, he couldn't care less. Blame Hawai'i. Blame the Hau-Ahi punch. Blame the beguiling, copper-skinned beauty in the lavender and blue sarong, but it all came down to _his choices_. She wasn't at all concerned with the choices of a Hawaiian woman who was a stranger. How could she blame Kailani for jumping at this chance? But at some point last night, after Martha had gone out of sight, _the Doctor_ had decided to disregard her, her feelings, her position in his life. Whether that meant that he'd simply ordered one too many cocktails, whether he actually propositioned Kailani with conquest on his mind, whether it was an innocent coffee date and then a one-thing-led-to-another sort of thing, some conscious election on his part had brought that woman into his bed. _Their_ bed, really.

The rational side of her knew that she had no real claim on him. They were not a couple. What he did had not been "cheating," and what she had said to him before her shower had been true: _technically_ , it was none of her business. But all of this was hard for her to hold onto, as from his actions, she knew that he had been planning on hiding it from her. He was all set up to lie to her by omission, and pretend as if he and Kailani had only ever interacted as server and customer, and nothing else. If he really believed he'd done nothing wrong, then why the secrecy? Why did he act like a rabbit caught in headlights when she returned to the room two hours early?

And anyway, what sort of a person shares time, meals, travel, adventures, living quarters and an all-around fairly intense and intimate life with someone of the opposite sex (especially someone who is known to be hopelessly in love with that person) and then just randomly shags a hot waitress from a luau? Just yesterday, she had been thanking the fates that he wasn't much interested in other women, which was a good thing because she wouldn't be able to abide him sleeping around. What the hell kind of messed-up synchronicity was this?

Her thoughts were circular. She second-guessed herself and her own importance, she grew angry and then contrite, and then angry again. She cried a little bit sometimes, then grew angry because he'd made her cry again. It was a miserable, sunny Hawai'i afternoon for her.

* * *

The Doctor found her there, beside the pool, sipping lemonade and trying to read.

"Hi," he said. "Feeling better?"

"Not really."

He sighed, and looked out at the few kids that were swimming about in the pool. "Hungry?"

"Yeah, what time is it?"

"Almost six."

"Oh. I haven't eaten since noon."

A pause, then he said, "I think we should talk."

"Yeah, probably," she sighed.

He held out his hand and she took it. They walked back to their room and shut the door. He ordered a seafood-pasta dish for himself, and a sushi platter for Martha, some chilled white wine, and a couple bottles of water. Then he set the phone back in its cradle, stood up and faced her.

She was on the balcony with the curtains open, pacing back and forth.

"If I tell you what happened, I think it might actually help. But I'm guessing you probably want me to shut the hell up and listen," he commented. "What say you?"

She stopped pacing. "The second one."

"Okay."

She took a deep breath. "All right. Let me first establish that, when you flirt with women, most of the time, I completely understand. I get it, I know what you're doing. It's like you said last night when you and Kailani kicked off... you need an in. That's reasonable. It's very James Bond of you. Actually, so was what you did last night." She took a pause and thought it through. She gestured to the bed. "Is that what you were doing? Were you James Bond-ing a potential double agent or something?"

"Not exactly," he admitted.

"Okay, then, never mind. So, the _flirting_ , I get. But, you have to understand how that makes me look. When you walk in someplace with me on your arm, and then start chatting up other women, it deflates me. And not just _me,_ on the inside, but it diminishes me also in the eyes of others. To the women you flirt with, and any others who see you do it, it makes me seem like a fool, like I'm hanging onto you because I'm too stupid to see that you're a womanizer or something."

"Wow. Actually, I've never thought of it that way."

"It's all intertwined, unfortunately, the flirting and your little slumber party with Kailani. It all comes from a place inside me, and inside you, and inside our lives, that says _we are not a couple_. Flirting is okay. Sleeping around is okay. We don't have to walk on eggshells or worry about 'maintaining' our relationship, because friends forgive one another, and friends don't need to 'maintain'."

"That is true," he sighed. " _We are not a couple_ is a big factor here. But I guess I've been going about it all wrong."

"Sorry, but, I think you have."

"Maybe we _are_ a couple."

She was genuinely surprised to hear him say this, but she didn't want to show it.

"Well, we act like one," she offered. "We have rows, and we share joy. We live together, work together, keep secrets together..."

"I'm sorry. This hasn't really crossed my mind before."

She sighed. "I guess because you don't..."

"I don't what?"

"You just don't have feelings for me. I mean, couple-like feelings."

"So? I'm a grown-up. And a complex guy, by most accounts. I should be able to shift my thoughts and emotions around well enough to have seen this." He said this rather calmly, contemplatively.

"Also, you've been a bit preoccupied with missing someone else."

"Again... I should have been able to see outside of that."

"Well, now you are able."

"Now I am," he said with a smile. His face shifted into a different, anxious expression. "But Martha... there's something you should know. This conversation has been valuable, and it will change my future behaviour, but as far as what happened with Kailani, there's a lot that you..."

But he noticed that she wasn't listening. Her whole body and aura suddenly seemed to fold in, as if someone had let all the air out of her. She sank down onto the lounge chair, and was now staring at the wooden floor.

"Martha? What's the matter?"

She sighed. The fact was, the Doctor had just come to the exact revelation to which she had been leading him. She had thought that he needed to see that sleeping with any other woman as long as he travelled with a single female companion was not appropriate. She had thought that his acknowledgement of their partnership as more than that of, say, two people who run a law firm, would provide her vindication.

Yet she still felt unsatisfied. She still felt that there was a loose-end that needed tying. The Kailani affair was grating on her still, and she couldn't put her finger on why.

He crossed to her, and sat beside her on the lounge. "What?"

"It's not just the fact that you have been ignoring our relationship as it stands. It's not just that you went about your life last night as if I didn't exist. You've said everything you needed to say, and admitted everything I wanted you to admit. You were sincere, and you've rather managed to salve my hurt feelings, and yet..."

"If it's not about hurt feelings, then what is it?" he asked putting a hand on her back. "Did something happen at the campsite?"

"No," she answered. She looked up at him, and searched his face. For the millionth time, she admired that perfectly-drawn five-o'clock shadow, the razor-sharp brown eyes, the uneven brows, the sideburns, the hair, the lips, the neck, the...

Upset as she was, she still could be absorbed by the carnal pull of him, damn it.

Then it came to her.

And she burst into tears (again), and buried her face in her hands, because suddenly, that vindication seemed so far away again. And she was so, so tired of feeling incomplete.

"Oh, Martha," he groaned. The Doctor fell to his knees in front of her, pulled her in close, and let her tears soak into his jacket.

"It's just not fair," she sobbed with no anger, only sadness in her voice.

"What's not?"

"You, me, Rose, Kailani, and just the bad bloody timing of it all!"

"Oh," he said low, evenly, before kissing the top of her head. "I get it now."

"Do you?"

"Yes."

"You understand why I'm so upset? All that lofty relationship rubbish aside, I'm _crushed_ because... you know?"

"I do," he assured her. "I've always known. I guess it's another thing I've handled all wrong."

"I haven't exactly been the Queen of Level-Headed either."

"How can I make it up to you?" he asked, stroking her back as he held her.

"Make it up to me?"

"I want to make it right," he said. "Tell me what I can do. I mean, I don't know if one gesture could ever... but we can make a start, at least. Maybe."

She pushed him away gently and looked him dead in the eyes. She stayed this way for a long, long moment. On her face, he thought he could read some calculation, some coldness.

"Erase her," she said. "Negate her."

"What?" the Doctor asked as a chill ran down his spine. "Like, make her disappear?"

"No," she said. "Negate her from your life. Negate the fact that she was your last. Negate anything she felt when she was with you, that I've never felt."

"How do I do that?"

"Let me feel it too."

"Oh," he breathed, raising his eyebrows.

"If you truly understand me, then you'll know: it's driving me insane that she got to feel things, and know things about you that I want to know. She has a piece of you that I don't, and as long as that's true, wewill always be infected by her."

He swallowed hard. "I see."

She grabbed him by the jowls now, and whispered, "Make me feel _everything_ she felt."

He felt the impact of that whisper throughout his body. "Martha, there's something you need to know."

"Tell me later," she said, pulling in his face the last few inches for a kiss.

His hands then landed at her sides, and he grasped at her just as hard as she was grasping at him. Quite suddenly, Martha, and this moment, completely had him. He felt _in it,_ fully committed, all in one desperate moment. She tilted her head to deepen the kiss, both of their mouths opened almost involuntarily, and suddenly, this kiss was in a whole new league.

The knock came. "Room service!" a voice chirped.

The Doctor pulled away, and keeping concentrated eye-contact with Martha, called out, "Just leave it in the hall, please. We'll get it later."


	4. Chapter 4

**Okay, folks, here it comes. Get ready to blush. ;-)**

* * *

FOUR

The knock came. "Room service!" a voice chirped.

The Doctor pulled away, and keeping concentrated eye-contact with Martha, called out, "Just leave it in the hall, please. We'll get it later."

For a few seconds, they just fixed their eyes upon each other, with intense concentration, until they heard the server walk away.

"If you think I've gone mad, you can just say so," she said, frowning deeply, worriedly. "I mean, sorry. I guess it was an impetuous thing to say, and..."

He interrupted, "Feel what she felt, negate her. I get it. Even though..."

"What?"

"Even though I still say there's a lot that you don't understand."

"Obviously, there is," she whispered. She was too shocked to speak any louder.

"You've made it clear that you don't want to hear it right now."

"I'm not ready to hear the details."

"Okay."

"You don't think I'm being childish?"

"No. Not at all."

"But if you..."

"Shhh," he lulled gently, with a quick kiss. "Just stop worrying. I reckon you've done enough of that today."

He resumed the deeper kiss then, and after a few moments, pressed forward, easing her back. She caught herself on her elbows against the soft linen pad of the lounge chair. He took hold of her light blue tee-shirt tail and pushed it up, revealing a smooth pane of flat brown stomach. He leaned down and swirled his tongue round her navel and smiled as she gasped. The sensation was totally unexpected for her, but exquisite, and shot straight down between her legs. She was igniting swiftly, though not all of the anger nor apprehension was yet gone.

He repeated the tongue-swirl and this time she shut her eyes and moaned a little, completely having forgotten what she wanted to say before. He quickly dipped his tongue into, and then brought it out of, her navel, grasped her around the waist with both hands, then began planting wet kisses all over her abdomen. Every fifth one or so, he would rub his lips and nose lightly against her skin, and moan softly before actually granting the kiss. So simple, yet the effect was intoxicating.

When he had covered every inch of stomach, he pushed her shirt up even further, and found a white lace bra in his way. He reached round back and unhooked it in one very smooth stroke. Martha sat up straight, with a bit of a start.

"We're on the balcony," she whispered.

"There's nothing but hills out that way for fifty miles," the Doctor said. "And the sides are enclosed. We can't be seen."

She smiled and conceded to what he was saying, then pulled the blue top over her head. Next she disentangled herself from the bra, and leaned back against her elbows once more.

He started again at her navel, and made a trail of juicy kisses straight upwards, all the way to the valley between her breasts. From there, he veered to his left and began covering the flesh of her right breast. He then engulfed the nipple between his lips. He sucked gently, then licked, then began lightly flicking the left one with his fingers.

Martha was now properly aroused, and beginning to feel that gorgeous, uncomfortable moisture gathering, and the strong pull for more.

He kissed his way across the valley, then tongued her left, already frenzied nipple, tweaking the right between his thumb and forefinger. Suddenly, she felt a sharp, though delicious, pain, and realised he was biting her. She squeaked, and instinctively twisted away. He smiled at her wickedly.

He sat back on his haunches and pulled the snap of her shorts open, then eased down the zip. He leaned in and made a slow swirl of the tongue on this patch of flesh, just above the waistband of a pair of purple satin knickers, now visible in the "V" of the zip. A vibration ripped through her and she all but swooned. She tried half-heartedly to twist away again for the intensity of the sensation, but he held onto her hips tightly, knowing she might escape, if not.

In fact, his fingers were inside the waistband of her shorts, which gave him the perfect angle and position to tug them off, including the purple satin knickers, and pull them down and over her toes.

He looked her over in her total nakedness, and shook off a kind of paralysis. He would have liked to stare forever, but there were far more interesting things that something within was telling him to do. He ran his hands possessively down over her body, from her shoulders to her knees, then studied her face as he pushed them apart. Once again, he grasped her hips, and pulled her forward rather roughly so that her bum was now only partially on the lounge chair. She sat up a bit, leaning on her hands instead of her elbows, wanting to _see_ what would happen next. It was a visual she might never have again, and she would, if it killed her, remember _everything_ about this encounter.

She was able to hold it together long enough to watch him lick the insides of her thighs and smile at the involuntary moans of frustration she let out. But when his tongue breached her swollen folds and raked over her clit, she lost all strength and fell onto her back. Though they could not be seen on their balcony, the ragged noise she made then, and the word she let out, would have left little to the imagination, had anyone been listening from a neighbouring terrace.

Her head was now hanging back, over the edge of the lounge chair. Her fingernails clawed at the white canvas upholstery, as he licked her from bottom to top, and finishing with a maddening, quake-inducing, swirl of the tongue. Then he locked his lips properly over the whole area, and his tongue went to work firmly massaging over and over her clit. Up and down it stroked, giving her no time to breathe, while the rest of his mouth drew her in, sucking gently, though increasingly not-so-gently. Her back arched, and she let out a succession of cries that were, at the same time breathless. In rare nanoseconds when she could retrieve language, she begged him breathlessly not to stop, ever.

In a couple of minutes (if that), her fist came down hard on the lounge mat, she half-groaned and half-screamed, and her feet flew up and locked over his back. Her strong calves pulled him in closer, and her body arched so hard that he had to hold her down as she came. Pulses rang through every part of her body - every extremity, and of course through her thighs, breasts and pelvis. She practically hummed, vibrated with aftershocks for a few moments, as the Doctor's tongue and lips expertly eased her away from the frenzy.

As she lay with her head still tilted back, feet back on the floor, panting, and wondering what to say next, he began at her left knee and began kissing his way up the inside of her leg. As he drew closer, she grew more sensitive, and she began to squirm and twist away. As before, he held her firmly in place, and increased the pressure of the kisses, until they had become suctions and bites. She yelped at each one, laughed along with him, then yelped again.

And without warning, he dived back in between her thighs. Her whole body jerked, as the sensation of his tongue on her clit again seized her wholly unexpectedly. This time he licked and lapped leisurely, listened to her moan, feeling her sensitivity turn into a renewed heat. It took longer this time, but he was not about to rush her, and after a while, he felt her body begin to coil in earnest once again.

She pulled herself up to rest back upon her elbows and he plunged two fingers into the liquid heat, just below where his tongue was working. For another few minutes, he pushed them in and out, as his tongue continued. He seemed to be in no particular hurry, and she just watched, and memorized, and relished the sight.

And then he pressed the fingertips upward, then pulled them back toward himself. The sensation nearly made Martha hit the ceiling. She gave a cry more intense than the one she had let out before, and again, pounded the mat beneath her with a fist.

He held her this way for just a few seconds, watching her face contort, watching her body rise and fall and buzz with tension, and it made him want to drag her back into the room and throw her on the bed. Mercifully, though, he lowered his head once again and wagged his tongue back and forth, as fast as he could, over her clit. In fairly short order, she screamed something inarticulate, and he felt the muscles inside of her pull hard on his fingers, then let go, then pull again. Over and over, he felt the tell-tale pulse of a powerful explosion, and he marvelled at how well she knew what to do with pleasure, how to channel it when she found it.

This time, he did not ease her down, nor give her time to recover. He stood up, then grabbed both of her hands and dragged her to her feet. She nearly fell like a ragdoll back onto the lounge chair, but managed to stay upright. He led her back in to the room proper, and shut the thick, beige, noise-absorbing curtains while she made her way slowly, a bit shakily, to the bed and sat down.

He didn't say a word, he just climbed out of his jacket. Then he began pulling his tie loose and walking toward her, keeping eye-contact, making no pretention about what was going to happen next. He snapped the tie away, and began undoing his cuffs and shirt buttons, while Martha bent to untie his shoes. He manoeuvred them off his feet without having to bend himself. He then shed his shirt while she finally allowed herself to look directly at the bulge in his trousers, and reached up to unhook and unzip them.

She moved backward across the bed, crab-style, while he stooped to step out of his trousers and socks. She laid back with her head resting on one of the grey and red throw pillows. Then he crawled, almost predatorily, following her across the same space, and coming to a stop above her. He took a moment again to look her over and notice her flushed cheeks, her nipples standing alert, her stomach and chest heaving up and down rapidly with anticipation. She followed his eyes with her own, and when his came to rest back on hers, he read urgency in them. Every external indicator of desire was present, like a flashing beacon.

And so, he lowered himself down, pressing her body into the bed, and his tongue into her mouth. When she felt his whole warm being come into contact with hers, and the hardness jutting against her inner thigh, she instinctively spread her legs. He adjusted himself to drive forward into her, and she adjusted herself to receive. The next time they moved, he sank in completely, pushing all the way to her core. They both moaned, and she tilted her head back to absorb the sensations searing rapidly through her body.

When she did that, he pulled the pillow roughly out from underneath her head, buried his face against her neck and began to thrust hard. She was still raw and sensitive from the two spectacular orgasms he had already given her (which she now understood, was by design), and that made this a different experience from the norm. She nearly bit off her bottom lip, and whole body wanted to writhe from the first moment. She felt something that was beyond pleasure, and just a half a step down from pain. She cried out repeatedly as he filled her over and over, and tears began to spill over the sides of her eyes. She felt certain that the pure power of it couldn't be contained in one body - she felt like it would blow her apart.

His mouth and tongue were on her neck, his teeth nipping lightly at her flesh. She could do nothing in return, except try to cope with the inundation of sensation. Very naturally, she was digging her fingernails into his arms and shoulders, having no concept of what she was doing. He found it painful and exhilarating.

Somewhere, deep within her, something new was gathering. A third storm was coming forth out of the fireworks, and pressing forward, making itself known.

"Oh God," she groaned. "Again... another one is coming."

"Good," he growled, biting her ear.

"Stare at this ceiling and explode from the inside out," Martha mused as the pleasure rose. "Is that what she felt? Is that what you did to her? Is that what you made her feel?"

"More or less," he groaned.

"Mm, fantastic," she said, just before coming again wildly, with her eyes fixed on the ceiling, and her voice ringing out, happily impeded by the noise-cancelling drapes. He watched her greedily as sparks flew through her, and did not stop his motion. In fact, he increased pressure, and pounded harder as her body gave way and she seemed to fall apart for a few moments.

But as her sanity returned, he stopped - though it took almost every ounce of will-power he had.

"Are you okay?" she asked, her eyes awash with worry.

"Do you want to know what she _didn't_ feel?"

"Yes," she said, eagerly. In spite of feeling spent, she found a second wind with the idea that she might get to know what Kailani never would.

"Well, I can tell you for sure, you already have," he said. "But what's next, Martha Jones?"

She sat up and got to her knees, which put her eye-to-eye with him. She pressed her hands against his shoulders and pushed, telling him, "On your back."

He obliged, turning, placing his head on the pillow he had discarded. She never let go of his shoulders, and wasted no time climbing atop him, yanking the pillow away with an impish smirk. She reached back, grasping his cock, then sank down, filling herself once again. She placed her hands against the wooden headboard and began to move.

In almost no time at all, she had found a rhythm that seemed to suit them both, because she felt him grasp both of her hips and begin to thrust upwards, in a contrasting motion. Only then did he seem to finally lose his composure. She looked down and watched his head loll, his eyes close, and she listened to him groan and whisper inarticulately. It was as if he had only enough energy to run his body below the waist; while his faculties seemed to slip away, his hands and hips grew more focused.

She wondered what would happen if she stopped. And so, she leaned forward and sat up on both knees, suddenly unsheathing him, and surprising him immensely. He let out a crackling groan of angst, and his eyes flew open.

"What are you doing?" he asked, not being able to help but laugh just a little. She reckoned it was either that, or cry.

"Just making sure you're still paying attention," she said, again, looking down. And, she found she enjoyed the power.

"Paying attention?" he asked with that same chuckle. "Are you kidding me?"

She bit her lip and slid back down on him, and resumed her movements. This time, he did not dare shut his eyes. He kept her in his sights. He too resumed; he replaced his hands on her hips and waist, and recommenced the thrust. She now lodged her palms against his shoulders, with no intention of letting go of that desperate gaze, no intention of stopping until he was well and truly finished, and she was finished with him as well.

 _This_ was the giving of himself that Martha was sure Kailani had not experienced. The Doctor only ever trusted a handful of people - with his life, his secrets, his body, perhaps. The luau girl was a passing fancy. Martha was a true companion. She realised now, in the last few moments before they crashed into each other, that she had always had a piece of him that Kailani never would. She could never guarantee that _no-one_ ever would, but at least she could rest easy knowing that the server from Hau-Ahi had no more influence than she. On _any_ part of his psyche.

And now she had even more. She'd got to feel him move beneath _her,_ grasp and thrust and look up at _her_ , bringing about _his_ frenzy, inciting the lolling pleasure from _him_. She had wanted to be taken and pleasured, pressed and possessed by him, but _this_ was where the real power was. This was the bit that the Hawaiian girl in the lavender and blue sarong would never feel.

Then his fingernails dug into her flesh, and he pulled her down flush against him while his eyes struggled to stay open, and his voice inarticulately into the room like a jagged knife. She felt a violent purging within, as though something were being ripped from his insides and poured into her.

And the sensation brought her over the edge again herself. She was surprised - she hadn't really felt it coming. But there she was, digging her own fingernails into his flesh as well, feeling, for the fourth time, pleasure exploding all over her being. But this time, he was coming with her.

And in a gush of sensation and love and liquid and flesh, the seal was complete. She knew she had him. She almost wished that Kailani could be there to witness. Almost.

He pulsed and convulsed for, interestingly, longer than she, and took longer to recover. And when he finally opened his eyes and seemed able to focus on her again, he actually smiled and let out a genuine laugh.

She laughed along, and then fell to the side, lying once again on her back, the two of them panting as though they'd just run a marathon.

"God, I needed that," he sighed, before swallowing hard.

"Really?" she asked, confused.

"Yeah."

* * *

 **This is not the end. Stay tuned for at least one more chapter that might explain some of the Doctor's more bizarre words and actions!**


	5. Chapter 5

**The final chapter. We get to see what the hell's been happening behind the scenes. Alas, we don't get to see how those "happenings" get resolved... they kinda weren't the point of this story anyway ;-). All we need to know is, all is well in the three hearts of Martha and the Doctor!**

 **FYI: I had a little trouble getting the last 1/4 right, where the Doctor explains the actions he took with Martha. I hope it makes sense to you.**

 **Thanks for reading. And if you did read, please review!**

* * *

FIVE

Eventually, the Doctor crept out into the hall and pulled in the room service trolley, and they partook of what they had ordered - including the wine. Following that, Martha spent another portion of the evening feeling even more things that Kailani never had (with the Doctor's willing participation, of course).

In the morning, when Martha woke, the TARDIS was parked on the balcony, and the noise-cancelling curtain was wide open now. The Doctor himself was sitting beside her, fully dressed, glasses on, turning over a trinket in his hands.

"Hi," she groaned.

"Morning," he answered. "I'm glad to see the whites of your eyes. If you slept another ten minutes, I was going to wake you."

"Sorry."

"Nah, don't be sorry. I'm just impatient. It's only twenty past seven."

She sat up and leaned against the headboard beside him, and squinted at the thing in his hands. It was cylindrical, about the same width and length of a standard half-litre bottle of water that one could buy at Tesco. It glowed blue on the inside, and had a million little wires sticking out of its sides. "What's that?"

"This," he said. "Is a very small piece of the time vortex."

"Oh," she replied, rubbing her eyes. "What's it doing here?"

"I'll show you," he told her. "Fancy getting dressed and meeting me in the console room in a few minutes?"

"Er, okay," she said, a little nervous. "Is everything all right, Doctor?"

"Everything's fine," he said.

"Are you, like, angry, or something? Your tone is..."

He smiled. "I'm not angry. Who could be angry? No, no. I just have some things to tell you. Are you ready to hear the details now?"

"The details of... you mean..."

"Yeah."

She contemplated for a moment, then gestured to the bed in disarray, including some pillows that had been thrown against the wall opposite in a hasty moment. "I don't know how much more ready I could expect to get."

He stood up. "I'll let you get your kit on, then," he said. He looked about the room, and crossed to the balcony, picking up the shorts, tee-shirt and undergarments that had been discarded on and around the lounge chair the previous evening. He laid them gently on the bed.

"Thanks," she said, before rolling sideways and getting to her feet. She grabbed the bra only, then her duffel, and dragged it into the loo.

* * *

She stepped into the console room with a messy bun in her hair, but a clean outfit on her body, a few minutes later. The Doctor was making adjustments to the Time Rotor.

"What are you doing now?" she asked.

"The TARDIS is feeling disturbed," he said. He held up the weird, wiry vortex capsule. "The presence of _this_ is making her very, very nervous. I'm turning a few of her sensors down temporarily, until we can jettison this thing safely."

"Okay. How do we do that?"

"First, let me show you where it came from." He shoved the capsule into his inside jacket pocket (where it seemed to disappear, as though his pockets were bigger on the inside), then took her hand and led her down the hall.

They stopped outside a door that Martha did not recognise.

"Before we go in," he began, placing his hand on the doorknob, and keeping the other firmly wrapped around hers. "I have to warn you that what you will see, at least initially, will be disturbing. Though, I'm sure you've probably seen worse on a Friday night in the ED."

She frowned. "Okay."

He looked at her seriously, then opened the door slowly, and turned on the light. They were in some kind of laboratory, with mechanical gadgets all around them, stacked floor to ceiling on metal shelves. In the centre of the room, there was a stainless steel table, about six feet long, three feet wide. Martha recognised it as a standard lab table, but there was something on it. It looked like a body, covered with a white sheet.

"Oh God," she groaned, stopping in her tracks.

"It's okay," he said, letting go of her, and stepping forward. He peeled back one end of the sheet, revealing Kailani's face and shoulders.

Martha gasped slightly, but mostly was just confused. She supposed that perhaps she now should have been more "disturbed" than she was, as the Doctor had warned, but no part of her, even for a kneejerk nanosecond, believed that the Doctor was guilty of any wrongdoing. She squinted at the face, and walked forward. She spent a few moments examining what she could see of the luau waitress, and said, "She can't be dead. Her skin is too... perfect. Still all bronzed and Hawaiian-looking. She should be grey."

"Hold that thought," the Doctor muttered, pulling back more of the sheet.

Another few inches below the neck was still the same colour bronze as Martha remembered - a bit of her breastplate and cleavage, the glowing tropical flesh that had shone above that memorable sarong, and above the bedsheet in their hotel room on the previous morning. But as he pulled further, revealing the rest of the body, Martha now began to properly gasp, and become appropriately disturbed.

The Doctor discarded the sheet completely, and now Martha could see that Kailani's entire torso, breasts to pelvis, was made up of a complex array of interlocking metal parts. Structuring grids, computer chips, gears and wires.

"Wow," she said, looking up at him, having no idea what else to say.

"You haven't seen the worst of it yet," he said. He took the right arm of the machine that was Kailani, which still appeared to be wrapped in flesh, and lifted it. He seemed to "unzip" it, and then slipped off the flesh entirely. What was left was a hinged blade, razor-sharp that extended from shoulder to wrist, then a mechanical hand, attached at the end.

"Is that, like, a giant knife?"

"Yep."

"Okay. I'm ready to hear it now. Tell me everything."

He sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. "Well, if you'll recall, this all started because there was a temporal disturbance coming from the volcano Puka Manawa. You might also recall that the name means _Bottomless Hole in Time._ You even pegged the _mysterious lights_ as the swirly-whirly vortex moving through. Time travel happening."

"I was right, then."

"Of course you were. And we also discovered that the hotel owns nine luau sites that form a crescent around the volcano, and that there had been at least fifteen disappearances of tourists from those sites, in the past three months."

"Right, the disappearances," she said. "In my angst over a comely cyborg, I almost forgot." Suddenly, the carnal events of the night before came flooding back to her, and she felt oddly ashamed. She had demanded amends from the Doctor, then taken what she wanted from him without letting him tell the whole story. She reckoned that she would let him finish now, and apologise later.

"So, we went to the Hau-Ahi luau, and met Kailani," he said, looking down at the unfortunate, deactivated machine on the table. "You may have noticed that she and I were a tad drawn to each other."

"A tad."

"I didn't realise it until after you got understandably upset with me and left that... it wasn't _attraction_ per se. She actually sat down with me after you were gone, and chatted me up. The more time I spent talking to her, the more I realised that what I was feeling was something different... not sexual at all, but even more at the gut-level than that. Some kind of tingle that came from the Time Lord in me, not from the man."

"Interesting way of putting it."

"But I didn't know quite what it was yet - I still needed more info. So I did the only thing I could think of: continued chatting her up, letting her think I was interested in something other than reconnaissance, and invited her back to the hotel room. I didn't want to switch up the game too much, or she might have become suspicious. She, or someone else. I had no idea what I was going to do once we got to the room, but I reckoned that I might need to be someplace a little less public to do it, and if anything went wrong, I could summon the TARDIS with the sonic."

"Why didn't you call me? I'd have come back to the hotel and helped!"

"How? You'd been dumped off at a beach by a shuttle that wasn't due to collect you until seven the next morning. Besides, I didn't know how long I'd have to keep up the charade with Kailani, and I didn't figure having another woman about would sweeten the deal. Although... one never knows."

"Indeed," she chuckled.

"But I needn't have worried about what to do in the room," the Doctor said. "As soon as we were through the door, she grabbed me and pulled me in for a big, and in retrospect, surprisingly juicy, snog. I put my hands on her hips to steady myself, and that's when I felt... well, not human hips. I knew there was nothing fleshy underneath that sarong."

Martha looked at the machinery. The body was framed like a woman's, and the shape, coupled with the sarong, had hidden the appearance of metal gears nicely. But she could now see, the hips were made of some kind of bent bars.

He continued, "I managed to reach into my pocket for the sonic, and I froze her. Incapacitated her. She continued to talk, but she couldn't really move. I peeled back all the bedclothes to get the clearest spot possible, knowing I'd probably have to dissect her, in a manner of speaking, and then laid her down on it. By then she had switched gears, all flirting was off, and she was rambling some prayer to Ai Pule."

"Ai Pule? The flesh-eating volcano god? And since when do robots pray?"

"It was probably just a malfunction," he shrugged. "But it told me a hell of a lot."

"She uses that big sword-arm to dismember people and feed them to some volcano-dwelling alien, doesn't she?"

"Yes, that's what I surmised, and she isn't the only one. Which brings me to this," the Doctor said, pulling the vortex capsule from his inside pocket. He reached down and fitted the gadget into a slot in the cyborg's stomach. "As soon as I had her on the bed, I threw off the sarong... blimey, that sounds dodgy. But you see what I saw. This vortex thing-a-ma-bob was what had me so drawn to her. I'm a Time Lord. I was feeling tingly and entranced somehow... because she was literally carrying _time_ in her belly."

"Oh! That makes total sense!"

"As soon as I removed the capsule from her, she began to power down. I had only about ten minutes left to talk to her before she lost all faculties, and then expired. Not that she told me anything useful. She just kept talking about Ai Pule and his godly, ravenous hunger. Eventually, her eyes closed while her mouth was still running, and she effectively died. I threw the sheet over most of her, and slept out on the lounge chair. I knew what you'd think if you saw, so my plan was to get her into the TARDIS and into the lab just before you arrived back at the room, then bring you in here and... well, tell you what I'm telling you now."

"But I came back early."

"Yeah... why, exactly?"

"One of the campers got hit by food poisoning in the middle of the night. It was ugly."

"Oh, I wondered. Anyway, I delayed bringing her into the TARDIS because I knew the presence of the vortex residue would disturb the Time Rotor, so I reckoned I'd bring her in as late as possible. Because, even with the capsule removed from her abdomen, the machinery still harbours, all over it, remnants of the vortex and the unauthorised time-travelling it's been doing."

"And you couldn't tell me the truth because I wouldn't let you," she said meekly, staring at the floor.

"Yeah," he admitted. "And I knew why. I couldn't blame you. You just needed to relax and take a shower..."

"And cry."

"Really?"

"Of course."

"I'm sorry," he sighed. "Then you said you wanted the bed clear. So I got the TARDIS into the hotel room, dragged the robot into the lab, got rid of the TARDIS, then called housekeeping to reset the room. I thought it would be best to let you calm down and get some sleep before trying to make excuses for what you saw."

"Thank you for not trying to hammer me with info," she said. "But... why did you... later on, we..."

"First things first," he said holding up a hand. "I still didn't have all the pieces of the puzzle, so while you were sleeping, I read the notes you wrote about the volcano when you went camping. Knowing then that the vortex resides in Kailani, as well as in the volcano... well, I started to work it out. I actually took the TARDIS into the volcano..."

"What?" she cried out.

"No, not _into the volcano_ , but into the patch of vortex that's harboured near the foot of it," he said. "And there was Ai Pule."

"He was actually there?"

"In the disgusting flesh," he said. "Well, he was a thousand years back in time, which is about from when the legend of Ai Pule originates. And he's not called Ai Pule, he's a carrion alien called Nelkorr. I'd dealt with him and his tribe before, like almost seven hundred years ago, but I didn't know he'd taken up residence on Earth, and was now demanding sacrifices in exchange for not covering the island with liquid magma."

"Yikes."

"Mind you, this is just my assumption, since the legend says that Ai Pule _controls_ the volcano and eats humans, one limb at a time. I didn't let myself be seen."

"Good move."

"I suppose sooner or later, we'll have to ask him what he's actually doing. The point is, Kailani - or the machine formerly known as Kailani - is an operative. The vortex in her reacts with the vortex at the foot of the volcano, so she is able to travel back a thousand years and _feed_ Nelkorr the bits that he wants. The vortex is always visible, but when the light show begins, that's when the actual time travel is happening - which you already knew."

"Wow."

"If you do the math, you'll see that it all makes sense. In ninety days, fifteen people have gone missing from the luaus. Nelkorr, or, if you prefer, Ai Pule of the legend, eats the limbs first, one by one, then the torso, and then the head for dessert. If he is fed one piece per night for ninety nights, he will need fifteen bodies."

"And yours was almost the sixteenth."

"I imagine so. I imagine that the M.O. of victim-gathering is through flirtation and then getting people to think they're going somewhere else for a shag."

"So, now I know what you meant when you said that Kailani was not the only one."

"You and I will probably still have to go to other luaus to find out how many of these things there are. There could be an operative at every luau, or several. It's possible that all of the serving staff are operatives. If they're smart, they'll have at least one male and one female at every site."

"How will we spot them?"

"We'll have to go separately to make them chat us up properly," he said. "I'll know one when I get close to one, now I know what I'm looking for. And I'll just have you carry Kailani's capsule in your purse or something, and if someone seems unduly interested in you (not that you're not duly interesting), just text me, and I'll make sure to rendezvous with you, and the operative, with the TARDIS, in the hotel room."

"What if someone just wants to sleep with me, and they're not an operative?" she asked, with a sideways smile.

"We'll just apologise and tell him (or her) we're police undercover, trying to catch a serial killer or something, and send them on their way."

"We will?"

"Yeah," he said, nonplussed. Then he changed his tone slightly, and retorted, "Or, alternatively, I could leave the two of you alone, and make sure to put the _do not disturb_ sign on the door."

However, when he said this, he did not seem amused by the prospect. He shuffled his feet on the floor and avoided eye-contact.

"Doctor, don't be silly," she said softly. "I was joking."

He looked up at her and sighed heavily. "Let's talk."

He came round the table, covered the cyborg, took her hand and led her out of the lab, shutting the door. As they began to make their way aimlessly down the hall, Martha asked, "So, if you weren't trying to apologise for shagging the waitress... why'd you do it?"

"Because... I wanted to," he answered, walking slowly along with her, staring at his feet.

"That's it?"

"Well," he corrected. "There was more to it than that."

"Such as?"

"For a start," he said, looking over at her. "You were right."

"About what?"

"About the... _we're not a couple_ thing. I was taking it for granted, when I should have taken my head out of the bottomless pit of time and realised... we really _are_."

"Okay, yes, thanks, you already said that yesterday, and I'm really glad. But you totally indulged my insane need to _feel what Kailani felt_ , and then some."

"Yeah, I did. Because I didn't think it was insane. I knew what you thought about me and Kailani, and I could imagine what you felt. You said something about how she had a piece of me that you didn't - I knew that must hurt. I thought about how it would feel for you to hear the truth. I wondered if maybe you'd feel rejected, and feel like I told you all that stuff just so I wouldn't have to..."

"You're right," she admitted with a chuckle. "I would have thought that. I was stinging and feeling all wounded. I would have assumed the worst. I would have assumed that you just didn't want me."

"I knew I'd have to tell you the truth eventually," he said. "Because we're far from finished investigating this thing. We have got to stop these operatives somehow, but I wanted us to be totally copacetic doing it. I didn't want there to be any more heaviness or uncertainty hanging over our heads - you've had enough of that, I think. I wanted you to feel secure. Satisfied."

"Satisfied?" she asked, one eyebrow raised.

"Satisfied in that you knew everything you needed to know. Felt everything you needed to feel. The only way for you to hear the truth and not be damaged by it, somehow, was for you to be satisfied... in that way. Does that make any sense? I swear, it did yesterday."

"It does."

He took a long pause, then added, "And also... I wanted to."

She laughed. "Okay then."

"Honestly, Martha, it just felt wrong to stop the whole show and insist on telling you that I didn't sleep with Kailani. That there was, in fact, no-one to sleep with. That, actually, this body, until last night with you, was entirely untested in that arena. By the time we got to that point, I reckoned it was irrelevant."

"I reckon you were right. Thanks."

"Don't thank me," he said. "It's weird."

"No," she chuckled again. "Thank you for being sensitive, and trying to understand my feelings."

"Yeah, I've been a blunt instrument for too long."

Without commenting on his last stipulation, she said, "So, luau tonight?"

"I've taken the liberty of making separate reservations for us. We'll see if we can reel in some robot cuties."

"What if we can't?"

"Then we'll reel in each other, and try again tomorrow," he answered with a smile.

 **End**

* * *

 **Thanks again!**


End file.
